On adaptation..

Current ecological concerns look to adaptation as a key strategy for sustaining endemic mineral, animal and vegetable life through identifying possible compatible species transglobally. Adaptation is a survival strategy occurring across species. The adaptable body is that which is present and sentient, seeking to re-imagine and intervene in the conditions of place, and/or re-engage with a place in a way that enables continuity of the body within that environment.

In terms of the dancing body, adaptation is felt or seen when a heightened physical perception is reached, resulting in movement (and verbal) language increasingly invested into the place where it is danced, and increasingly articulate of that place. The potential of language exchanges across disciplines is forwarded through generative dialogue, adapted towards an ever changing landscape.

As a choreographic device, adaptation affords the potential for language exchanges across not only disciplines but performance elements. Adaptation activates a choreographic design based on the investment of the active person into a site, regardless of whether they are the performer, director, audience, musician or lighting designer. The device is forwarded through generative dialogue, enabling the ever changing or uncontrolled elements of environments (eg. outdoor sites) to remain changeable but workable, rather than controlled – or ‘staged’.